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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 5, 2007
Illinois
Council Develops New Quality Assurance Program for
Long-term Care Nursing Departments
CHICAGO – To provide
long-term care nurses with an organized and orderly
approach to Quality Assurance, the Illinois Council on
Long Term Care has developed the new Quality
Assurance Program for Long Term Care Nurses.
The Illinois Council wrote this manual to help nurses
deliver quality care to the residents, protect the
facility from OBRA and public health violations, assure
Medicare documentation is correct, and safeguard
resident and employees from injury, along with many
other functions and assignments.
“Life for a nursing department
can be unpredictable, running from one `fire’ to the
next,” said Susan Duda-Gardiner, director of clinical
services for the Illinois Council on Long Term Care.
“It sometimes seems almost inevitable that something
can get overlooked, and survey inspection is not the
time to find out you have a problem. Quality Assurance
is an OBRA requirement, and effective and systematic
implementation means more than a committee meeting. It
can be the backbone for protecting your residents,
protecting yourself, and protecting your facility.”
Developed by a team of front-line
nurses, this quality assurance manual uses the
innovative approaches of:
Compliment/Concern
Identification Forms – Compliment/Concern
Identification Forms solicit the opinions and
observations of the residents, staff, families, and
visitors, regarding any complaints, problems, or areas
of improvement in the nursing department’s practices.
These forms are made widely available throughout the
facility.
Focused Rounds – Focused
rounds are intended to discover areas of concerns before
they become a problem for the facility. The manual’s
16 sentinel Focused Rounds take the form of short
checklists devoted to specific practices and concerns,
and are conducted on a regular basis.
Quality Assurance Reviews
– A Quality Assurance Review is a more in-depth
evaluation of a particular service or practice. A
Focused Round, Compliment/Concern Identification Form,
or a compliance survey citation, among others, can
trigger a Quality Assurance Review.
Recently, the Illinois Council on
Long Term Care hosted a seminar series around the state
to launch its new Quality Assurance Program for Long
Term Care Nurses. Attracting more than 300
professionals, the seminars and manual were extremely
well received, helping nurses better fulfill the federal
requirements for OBRA F-tag 520 on Quality Assessment
and Assurance.
The Quality Assurance Program
for Long Term Care Nurses manual costs $150 for
non-members of the Illinois Council on Long Term Care
and $100 for Council members. For more information,
contact the Illinois Council at 773/478-6613 or visit
the “Publications” section of the Illinois
Council’s Web site at www.nursinghome.org/pro/pub/pub.html.
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The
Illinois Council on Long Term Care is a professional
association of more than 150 nursing facilities
committed to quality residential health care in Illinois
through a productive and responsible partnership between
the private and public sectors. The Council represents
more than 26,000 nursing home professionals serving more
than 35,000 residents. Helpful information for seniors
and families can be found at the Council’s Web site
www.nursinghome.org.
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